What's New

Modified CRMF Design Avoids Owens Corning Impact

We want to provide an update on the progress being made on the FasTracks Commuter Rail Maintenance Facility (CRMF). The design of the proposed facility has been modified to address concerns raised over the past few months.

Why is a CRMF needed?
RTD needs a new facility to clean, maintain and repair the commuter rail vehicles that will serve the Gold Line and the three other FasTracks commuter rail corridors.

What have the comments been regarding the CRMF proposed Fox North Site?
A Supplemental Environmental Assessment of the proposed CRMF Fox North site -- located at 48th Avenue and Fox Street, just northwest of I-25 and I-70 -- was prepared and comments were gathered in April and May.

In general, comments about the proposed CRMF have either supported the recommended Fox North site for the maintenance facility or raised concerns about the potential economic and employment impacts that could result if existing property owners on the site decided to close their operations rather than accepting the relocation benefits offered to them.

What are the potential property impacts of the CRMF proposed Fox North Site as originally designed?
RTD needs to purchase three of the properties comprising the Fox North site for the shared Gold Line/Northwest Rail alignment. A small portion of the fourth property, an Owens Corning shingle manufacturing plant, is also needed for the shared alignment. However, RTD would need to purchase the full property to accommodate the original design of the CRMF at the Fox North site.

What are the potential property impacts of the CRMF proposed Fox North Site with the new design?
RTD has developed a modified design for the Fox North site that does not require purchasing the full Owens Corning property while maintaining RTD's ability to meet the operational requirements of the maintenance facility.

The modified design completely avoids Owens Corning's manufacturing and administration buildings and only requires RTD to purchase a small amount of additional land, currently used for storage and parking, on the southwest corner of their property. RTD presented the modified design to Owens Corning and is committed to working with them as the modified design is enhanced to ensure that their parking, storage and operational needs can be accommodated.

What did RTD have to do to avoid major impacts to Owens Corning?
To create the modified design, RTD adjusted some standard operating practices. One practice is assuming underground storm-water detention rather than surface ponds. A second practice is designing the facility to be capable of storing the opening day fleet (78 vehicles) on site rather than the 2030 fleet (96 vehicles). The new design is capable of storing more than the opening day fleet but not the entire 2030 fleet. When the fleet expands beyond the opening day size, up to 18 CRMF vehicles (no more than six per corridor) would be stored at the ends-of-line of the CRMF corridors during the few hours the system is not in operation - a practice that is common to avoid running non-revenue producing trains to corridor ends-of-line each morning to start service. All of the modifications, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each, are summarized in the modified Fox North site map.

The modified CRMF design will be included in the Gold Line and East Corridor Final Environmental Impact Statements. Both are expected to be published and available for public comment in August or September.

Preliminary Design Determined for Gold Line Stations

After convening Issue-Focused Teams throughout the fall, RTD has identified preliminary design themes for each of the Gold Line's stations. More than 75 citizens volunteered to serve on teams for one or more of the Gold Line's seven stations, which are proposed to be located at 41st Avenue, Pecos, Federal, Sheridan, Olde Town Arvada, Arvada Ridge and Ward Road. The citizen participants worked side-by-side with city/county staffs and the Gold Line team to discuss station access plans for pedestrian, bus and vehicular traffic, as well as conceptual design concepts.

RTD has developed four different design templates for its commuter rail stations. These templates will provide thematic guidance for the final station designs. The four design templates are:

Neighborhood Craftsman - Planned for the Sheridan and Arvada Ridge stations
Main Street Historic - Planned for the Olde Town Arvada station
Town Center Contemporary - Planned for the Federal and Ward Road stations
Industrial Loft Modern - Planned for the 41st Avenue East and Pecos stations

While many station elements will be the same throughout the Gold Line corridor (e.g. ticket vending machines, bike racks, trash receptacles), there are other items -- such as fencing, canopies and shelters -- that can be unique to the station's design template. This thematic design approach will help Gold Line stations be representative of their surrounding area, be it more urban, industrial, residential or historic. You can view examples of what the various themes could look like by clicking here.

Pecos Station Update

Over the past few months, RTD has continued to evaluate and refine the Pecos station. RTD still anticipates moving forward with the preferred option that was identified in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which is located on the east side of Pecos. The main benefit of this location is that patrons could access both Gold Line trains and Northwest Rail trains at the station on opening day. But in order to construct the Pecos station at this site, it is necessary for Adams County to complete construction of a bridge (known as the Pecos Grade Separation project) that elevates Pecos Street over the existing train tracks. This project is currently scheduled to be completed in time for the Gold Line.

In case the grade separation project is not funded or complete by the time the Gold Line project is constructed, RTD has prepared a fallback design option (known as Option A) for the Pecos station. This option would only be pursued if there were an unforeseen delay in Adams County's construction of the new Pecos bridge. The option is also located on the east side of Pecos and is nearly identical to the preferred option; the only difference is the configuration of the road that will access the park-n-Ride. Due to complex track configurations, Option A would not be capable of serving the Northwest Rail line at opening day, but it could be reconfigured to do so at a later date after the Pecos bridge is completed.

The station option located to the west of Pecos Street has been eliminated from consideration, since it would not allow for a future reconfiguration to serve Northwest Rail.

View the New Gold Line Video
Click here to view this new informational video on the Gold Line.

To view an archive of all previously posted "What's New" web updates, please click here.